Monday, March 03, 2008

Feedback, I love feedback!

Some of you may remember that I started this blog just as I decided to visit my father, who I hadn't spoken to since I confronted him about sexually abusing me 11 years before. One of the things that was so incredible about having a blog was that I could write about all of the crazy and overwhelming emotions I was feeling on that trip, and right away it was out in the world that felt so supportive. Then on my book tour for Nobody Passes, when I was a complete exhausted mess but also filled with so much inspiration, it was fun to put all that out in the world right away. Since then I've gone in so many different directions, and I love it!

Another thing that's been super-exciting about this blog is the way that it has affected my writing process, making me write even more regularly but also changing my style in subtle ways like the way I use run-on sentences to go deeper into emotion. Right -- that's another thing about this blog -- part of the point is to be more publicly vulnerable, because that actually makes me feel safer. Also it's given me a sense of the arc of my next book-length work, which I think will go from visiting my father before he died to my struggles to regain a sense of liberation in my own sexuality to the daily overwhelm of fibromyalgia dramas to memories of childhood.

Before I started this blog I didn't really think much about blogging, mostly I just knew that I had a lot of thoughts to get out in the world and sometimes waiting for them to get published or trying to prioritize what would and wouldn't get published just seemed way too slow.

Another unexpected thing about blogging was the way that the immediacy of comments kind of gave me a rush, especially when discussions started so soon after I’d written down my thoughts. But even just hearing from people out here in the blogosphere -- it's funny how one small comment saying hi can suddenly make me think oh, there's a reason I'm writing this -- not just for me, but also to put it out in the world and see people react. With writing so often you have no idea, so the immediacy of the response with blogging is a bit intoxicating. I've also received a number of incredibly intimate and touching emails that have felt so nurturing and inspiring. And conversations in person with old and new friends that feel deeper because of connections and revelations possible through this blog.

So now I'm just writing to make sure you know that I love feedback, in whatever way you want to deliver it -- of course I'll keep writing without feedback, but it does help to keep me inspired...

i come to your blog almost everyday. i stumbled across it looking for queer writing submissions and have been intrigued and moved and bothered and excited and concerned and in love with the way you can invite readers who do not live in your world into your world. such beauty.

I haven't spoken to my father since 1984, and have been informed he is very ill, possibly near death. I wish I was the type of person who could overcome my grudge and start caring, but I'm just not. When people ignore you for decades, do not even care about seeing their grandchild, why should you suddenly care about them?

You have reminded me: I am not the one who created the rift in the first place.

This seemed like a good post to finally comment on. It's funny that we're on each other's blogrolls but we've never really communicated. Anyway, I just wanted to say that it's inspiring to me as a queer survivor of incest that you're writing your stories so rawly and fiercely and openly. I also appreciate your clear-eyed radical analysis of political movements and events.